[00:00] What's up, dude? Today, I'm gonna show you a completely foolproof way to cook chicken thighs, which results in juicy chicken with extra crispy skin. And we'll be pairing that with a salad that is absolutely fit for a chef,
[00:12] mostly because it is completely devoid of any green, leafy nonsense at all. Now, let's go. Okay, friends, before we dive into this chicken technique, I first wanna show you a salad that is your favorite salad's favorite salad.
[00:24] It is so substantial and absolutely just, I think it's one of the best salads you can ever f***ing make. We're gonna make a charred corn, poblano, and lime salad. We're gonna put in a touch of neutral oil into this preheated pan.
[00:36] All right, I've had it heating up for a few minutes already. And we're just gonna do a quick char on this corn. I pre-shocked it. And what we're looking for here, it's just a light blackness all the way around. We just wanna keep rotating them every 15, 20 seconds or so.
[00:50] I've had it on medium-high heat for about five minutes. It's got light charring all the way around. This is what I'm after. I'm gonna pull it out now, set it on this plate. And into that same hot pan, I'm throwing my poblanos, and I'm gonna pop them right under the broiler here to char that skin.
[01:05] And once they get a little charred like that, I'm just gonna flip them over to a new side. I should probably be using tongs that actually is extremely painful. And back in, we go. And after five to 10 minutes, depending on the strength of your broiler,
[01:17] they should look something like this. At this point, you just wanna pop them in a container and just stick a lid on it and let it steam. Now in that same pan, we're gonna do some blistered cherry tomatoes. I've got it over high heat. We wanna do these fast and furious.
[01:30] They're just washed, so in they go. And once they're in the pan, then I add a tiny bit of oil. Just help some blister. And after just two or three minutes, they're sort of lightly black all the way around. And you can see that skin getting a little wrinkly.
[01:42] At this point, we're gonna get them out onto a little plate here. And I'll just hit them with a little bit of olive oil right away and some salt. It's really gonna stick on there if you do it hot like that. Also a little bit of pepper. Set these aside.
[01:54] Next, a little bit of red onion. And we're gonna perform a sort of larger dice on this. So just something like that. You can go bigger or smaller, depending on your preference. And I like to drop that right into ice water. Just break it up a little bit in there.
[02:06] And I soak it in here for about 30 minutes, which does two things. One, it removes that harsh, breathy, oniony flavor. And two, it makes it super crunchy, so it really is a great trick for any kind of onion. Back to the poblano is where it's been about 15 minutes.
[02:19] You can go ahead and get these out now. And what we're gonna do is remove this skin. Actually, like just taking a little piece of paper towel, just doing my best to remove that skin. What I don't do is run it underwater. Because you wash away a lot of the good flavor,
[02:32] actually, when you do that. And having a little bit of skin left on here, for me, is really not a big deal. But just do your best. The paper towel just helps you get a grip. And then I'll just pull this top out here and open it up. And from here, I'll just scrape the seeds out with a knife, like so.
[02:44] And then from here, I'm just gonna slice down, like so, got the tip of my knife down. And I'm just pulling through, which is a great technique for these sort of bell peppers, poblanos, or what have you. And from there, I'll just slice into nice little squares.
[02:56] Now with our corn here, I'm just gonna snap those hobbed in half. And from here, I'll just glide my knife down, all the way around, just to remove all the kernels. We'll get our corn in a big bowl at our poblano. Then just set this aside for now,
[03:09] while we blast out the dressing. And what I'm gonna do is just juice a whole bunch of limes into some mayonnaise, this is homemade mayonnaise. You definitely use store-bought, but I will put a link to this one at the end of this video, if you want to learn how to make it. And the benefit really is, you know,
[03:21] you're using good oils. So it's really less about the flavor and more about the ingredients that go into it. Once all that limes in, we can go ahead and give this a really good mix. Then we'll take some rough chopped garlic, as well as fresh, no chili.
[03:33] Definitely get away with chili flakes or another chili, if you like. And we'll add in some coarse salt to help it grind. And we'll alternate between smashing and grinding here in this mortar and pestle until we have a nice fine paste, which I'll then add into my dressing,
[03:46] along with a little sour cream. We'll whisk this all up and boom, that is your dressing done right here. It's like creamy and sour and spicy. It's gonna go so good with that corn. Now, in order to get the best possible results,
[03:58] we need the best possible equipment. And that's why I'm using this carbon steel griddle from the sponsor of today's video, Maiden Cookware. And I've been using their products in my kitchen for years now and long before they ever sponsored this channel.
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[04:23] around the world. If you're looking to make the switch to clean cooking equipment that is free of any harmful chemicals then Maiden's carbon steel collection is for you. The griddle is pre-seasoned and naturally non-stick, so it's ready to start using right out of the box.
[04:37] Inspired by professional kitchen flat tops, it offers a large cooking surface that makes it easy for me to cook for multiple people or prep more food at once. The griddle can also be used outdoors on a grill over an open flame inside the oven
[04:49] or simply on top of your stove burners. And it's ideal for making everything from perfectly seared steaks and smash burgers to crispy bacon, fluffy pancakes, grilled cheese, and much more. Check out the carbon steel griddle as well as Maiden's other cookware
[05:02] by using the link down in the description to save on your order. Thank you, Maiden, for sponsoring this video. Now let's get back to the recipe. Next up, we're gonna move on to our chicken thighs. And what I like to do is buy bone-in skin on chicken thighs
[05:14] and then debone them myself. And if you've never done this, don't worry because it is actually extremely easy here's how you do it. We're just gonna take our thigh and make one little cut just up like that. That way I can slit my knife under the back of this bone
[05:27] and then pull up like so. And now essentially I'll just hold the bone and just begin scraping down just like this. Literally took two seconds. Once we get to this joint down here, we just kind of scrape it out and then just slice it off like that. It really is that easy.
[05:39] It may take you a little bit longer to do that for the first time. Make sure you get any cartilage out. You might see some down here left over. So again, I'm just slicing up that first bone right there, a little bit along either side. And then I can just slit my knife right underneath
[05:53] and just pull up, just slice out right here. Again, pick up the bone, begin scraping it down all the way around, down to this joint here and then we just cut that out. And you can save all these bones to roast them, make some stock, do what you want.
[06:05] And then if you want, you can trim up the fat a little bit just to kind of square it up. Sometimes you get a lot of fat hanging over the edge. This one's pretty good. And the reason I do this is because it's really hard to find boneless skin on chicken thighs.
[06:17] I don't know, do you see him anywhere? Because I certainly don't. And the boneless chicken thighs, they're just really like processed. A lot of the times they're way too small and they just don't look good at all. Now, what I'm about to show you is really about the technique
[06:29] in terms of the spices you use. That's really up to you. I'm gonna be doing a little 10-dory spice mix with Kashmiri chili powder, ran out of breath. But smoked paprika would be great. Salt and pepper would be great. You could do garlic powder, onion powder, paprika.
[06:42] That would be great. It's all up to you. But first, I'm gonna hit these with salt and some Sergeant Gilbert reporting for duty, which is black pepper. If that's not obvious, I think it is. Then I'll hit it with my 10-dory spice and the Kashmiri chili powder, which isn't spicy,
[06:54] but just gives it an amazing color. If you've never tried it, it's great one to have in your pantry. I'll put a link for it in the description. I'll just pat in those spices and we'll flip it over and do the exact same process on the skin side.
[07:06] My grill has been heating up for about five minutes. This point, I'm now gonna turn the heat like just a touch over low. I just wanted to get some heat into it, but we're gonna cook these chicken thighs over extremely low heat the entire time.
[07:18] So, I'm gonna put a healthy amount of neutral oil down and then we'll drop our thighs skin side down. And then I'm immediately gonna put a weight on there. And what that does is really help that skin
[07:32] get a great contact to your cooking surface, which in turn will make sure it's nice and crispy and just beautiful. The idea with this technique is we are gonna cook that chicken about 90% of the way through all the way on the skin side, making it incredibly foolproof.
[07:46] And here we are after eight, nine minutes. The chicken's basically cooked through. All we gotta do now is flip it over and give it about two more minutes on the other side if that and it's literally done.
[07:58] It has a nice little bit of charring. Almost looks grilled. That is what I was going after. The skin feels nice and crunchy. And there we are, my friends. We can get that off onto a resting rack for now. Wall, we finished our salad.
[08:10] Now to finish our salad here, I'm going in with feta cheese. I'm just gonna crumble it in. You could use like cotija or another one, but it's great with feta. Give that a quick work in. Our red onions that I have now dried.
[08:22] Salon tro and green onions are blistered tomatoes. Ooh, I said tomatoes. Now I'm gonna dress it a little more salt and I add avocado last because I don't want to cream it too much. That makes sense.
[08:34] Like break it up too much. And there you have it, my friends. Charred corn, poblano salad done. Let's plate up. This is the salad of the summer, my friends. I would eat this just like every day. Little green onion on there. We'll get our chicken thighs.
[08:46] I mean, hey, I go to someone's house. They throw that in the middle of the table. I'll tell you what, I'm gonna be pretty freaking excited. Only one thing left to do, my friends. Let's give it a taste with Marcus. All right, Marcus, you guys, if you've never had a blistered tomatoes like this.
[08:58] Oh, I like tomato. I should've used the spoon. This is it, is that it? Have this as a side at your barbecue restaurant in Austin.
[09:11] That would be dope. Yeah, it's great. You're corn and you're like the better. And the feta in there. So you get like these tomatoes explode in your mouth. And then the spice, the heat from the poblanos and the chilies, the corn, the lime, man.
[09:23] Bon appetit. It tastes like so much more than what it is. Like it tastes like, I mean, I used the tandoori spice, but I would think that was grilled as someone gave it to me. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of that. You should use these spices. Tandoori is just great. Honestly, I know this video was like about the chicken
[09:38] in regards to the title and thumbnail. But come for the chicken, stay for the salad, am I right? Fire. Don't let the recipe, my friends, and please. I'm making it.